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		<header>
			<h1>A bad day</h1>
			<p>Day 01343: <time>Friday, 2018 November 09</time></p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2018/11/09.jpg" alt="The Social Security Administration building" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		You may remember from yesterday that I asked the investment firm what proof of identity I need.
		They replied this morning that they&apos;d accept the change-of-name court order.
		So ... no proof of identity needed?
		I mean, I&apos;m under the impression that anyone can walk into the courthouse and get a copy of that name change court order.
		It certainly proves my name was legally changed, but it doesn&apos;t prove I am authorised to access the account and have changes made.
		My reply:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Hello <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>,
		</p>
		<p>
			Right, I need the court document to prove the name change.
			Anyone can get a copy of that from the courthouse though.
			Do I additionally need to send any document proving my identity to authorise me to request changes to the account and authorise me to request a user name and password be set up?
		</p>
		<p>
			Thank you,<br/>
			~ Alex Yst
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		I got a response telling me that to change the name on the account, I only needed the legal name change document.
		The legal name change isn&apos;t all I need done to the account though.
		As I told them before, I need to get access to the account because I have no way to access it at all right now.
		Even in my last letter, I mentioned once more that I need to request changes to the account, though I didn&apos;t restate which ones.
		My response:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Hello <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>,
		</p>
		<p>
			If you recall though, I not only need to change the name on the account, but also get a user name and password set up on the account so I can access the account online.
			My credit union no longer allows me to manage my IRA with your firm through them, so I need another way to make contributions to the account, as well as withdrawals when I&apos;m older, et cetera.
		</p>
		<p>
			In addition to the court document, is there any proof of identity I need in order to request a user name and password be set to the account so I can access the account on your website?
		</p>
		<p>
			Thank you,<br/>
			~ Alex Yst
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		They responded that I&apos;ll need my account number from their system, as well as my Social Security number.
		I don&apos;t appear to need the card itself.
		That works out well, as I failed in my errand today to get my card replaced and will have to wait until Monday to try again.
		Thankfully, I have my Social Security number saved in my encrypted password database, so I still have access to the number even without the card.
		I guess I&apos;ll work on composing my letter of instruction to them tomorrow, if there&apos;s time and I&apos;m feeling up to it.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="card">
	<h2>Social Security card</h2>
	<p>
		Last night as I was biking home from the <abbr title="Eugene Unix &amp; GNU/Linux User Group">EUGLUG</abbr> meeting, my back wheel started limping.
		On the way to the Social Security Administration office today, the limping worsened, drastically slowing down the bike.
		Add that to the fact that my front brake has only half-worked for months and the fact that my back brake hasn&apos;t worked at all for about a week, and the trip was a major pain in the neck.
		I&apos;m still unsure what&apos;s wrong with the front brake.
		I actually found heavy damage to the back brake&apos;s brake line soon after the back brake quit working though, and even without being a mechanic, the nature of the damage makes it very clear to my why the brake won&apos;t work now.
		What a pain.
		I&apos;m going to need to get this back wheel looked at.
		I wonder if the bike shop does repairs.
	</p>
	<p>
		Once at the Social Security Administration, I waited for about half an hour.
		Three of about fifty people in the lobby got called up to be served.
		I&apos;m not even exaggerating.
		There were more people waiting than the lobby had chairs.
		People had resorted to using the chairs at each of the closed help windows as well, and there were still people left chairless.
		At that rate, how long would it take to get to me?
		I didn&apos;t get to find out because I realised I hadn&apos;t brought my <abbr title="identification">ID</abbr> with me.
		I&apos;d left my wallet in my other backpack.
		Joy.
	</p>
	<p>
		I rode back home on my limping bicycle thinking the entire day had been wasted.
		I hadn&apos;t gotten the Social Security card ordered.
		I had work tonight, so I didn&apos;t have time to return later with my <abbr title="identification">ID</abbr>.
		And I wouldn&apos;t be able to try again until Monday, because they&apos;re closed on the weekends.
		When I got home and checked my email, my mood was considerably lifted.
		I won&apos;t need the Social Security card just yet anyway.
		I still need to try again on Monday though as I&apos;ll need it for my job hunt in a few months.
		The day wasn&apos;t entirely wasted; I&apos;d managed to finally get a straight answer as to what I need to prove my identity to the investment firm.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="aftermath">
	<h2>Aftermath</h2>
	<p>
		I kept getting headaches at work tonight thinking about all the garbage I&apos;ve got to deal with now.
		It&apos;s really not that much, unless you take into account how little time I have left before I&apos;m headed back to Drudgery University.
		I guess I&apos;ve got three main things to deal with.
		I&apos;ll write off everything else I was planning to do during the break, for now.
		I&apos;ve got to replace the Social Security card, obtain and send documents to the one investment firm that&apos;s actually been responding, and I need to get my bike into a usable state.
		I&apos;d say the bike is the least important, but it&apos;s also the most urgent.
		Every day I spend without a working bike is a day I&apos;m losing extra time during commute.
		At work, I found my knees were sore, too.
		No doubt, this was from the added difficulty of peddling the limping bicycle.
		The bike&apos;s out of commission for now.
		It&apos;d be nice to have it in working condition again in time for my Thursday <abbr title="Eugene Unix &amp; GNU/Linux User Group">EUGLUG</abbr> meeting.
		After that, I can worry about the rest as time allows.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m supposed to receive a visit from those missionaries tomorrow morning.
		If there&apos;s time after that, I&apos;ll peddle my limping bike to the local bike shop and see if they know how to perform a repair on the wheel, if they&apos;re open.
		If not, I can get their hours so I can return later.
		While I&apos;m there, I can see what they can do about the front brake and the back break line.
		A workmate told me today that they do in fact perform various bike repairs.
		All bike repairs, according to them.
		I can imagine plenty of repairs they&apos;re unlikely to perform, but there&apos;s a decent chance they can fix the wheel and a high chance they can get both brakes working again.
		If they can&apos;t fix the wheel, I guess I walk back to Eugene and check out the junk yard there to see if they have one that&apos;s the right size.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="religion">
	<h2>Religion</h2>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve run out of time to read this book the missionaries left me.
		I&apos;d hoped to read a bit more than they&apos;d requested, but getting that bare minimum read was all I was up for after the day I&apos;ve had.
		I would&apos;ve read that part yesterday, most likely, if not for yesterday&apos;s events, forcing me to put it off until today.
	</p>
	<p>
		Three small sections, covering four pages.
		That&apos;s what I was asked to read and pray about.
		The first section raised a major red flag for me.
		The content of the Book of Mormon was supposedly taken from golden plates brought to a man named Joseph Smith.
		However, according to this section, it was Yahweh that did the translating of the plates for Joseph.
		With no plates seeming to actually exist in the modern day, there&apos;s no way to prove the plates were translated correctly, such as by retranslating them.
		That means the plates weren&apos;t revealed for the purpose of proving the word of Yahweh.
		Because Yahweh told Joseph what the plates said, there was no reason for the plates to be revealed at all.
		It&apos;s a plot hole in the story.
	</p>
	<p>
		As I read the second section and thought further about the first, I came to realise that if there were golden plates, these plates were for the witnesses.
		There were people that supposedly witnessed the plates Joseph was led to.
		Joseph could have built fake plates to fool the witnesses, putting ancient-looking writing that didn&apos;t actually mean anything in any ancient language on them.
		Then, the plates were disposed of to prevent the revelation of his fraud.
		Then again, the witnesses could have also been in on it.
		There&apos;s no proof such plates, even fake ones, ever existed.
	</p>
	<p>
		The third section sealed the deal.
		The messenger of Yahweh was somehow supposedly beyond description.
		If you can see something, you can describe it.
		Your words may not do it justice, but you can get some sort of vague description written down.
		Additionally, the messenger kept telling Joseph the same things verbatim, for some reason.
		The second, third, and fourth times the messenger visited Joseph, they supposedly said everything they&apos;d said the previous time, then added more.
		What kind of oddball purpose could that serve?
		It sounds like a drug trip or something.
		And finally, though the plates were stored underground for centuries without discovery, it sounds like the messenger took the plates to heaven afterwards to make sure they didn&apos;t get discovered again.
		So ... keeping them underground is safe enough before, but now the plates need to go to some other plane of existence to prevent rediscovery?
		Also, again, if you&apos;re a god that wants people to follow you, why hide the proof of your word?
		The only reason I can think to hide it is to hide the fact that it didn&apos;t come from a god after all, but from man.
	</p>
	<p>
		I made a short prayer, mostly expressing how the things I read just don&apos;t add up, and asking if what I was on the right track with what I&apos;d written about them in the three paragraphs above.
		Supposedly, I was supposed to get some sort of feeling of confirmation.
		No such feeling came.
		All I felt was the continued feeling that none of this added up, and thus couldn&apos;t be true.
	</p>
</section>
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